


Displacement

by Dorothy Marley (dmarley)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crack, First Time, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 20:45:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dmarley/pseuds/Dorothy%20Marley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney waved a hand. "It's displacement," he said dismissively. "We're displacing our anxiety about being trapped in the middle of another galaxy with life-sucking aliens bent on killing us all."</p><p>"So instead of worrying about certain death, we're obsessing over the size of another man's penis." John considered. "Seems healthy enough to me."</p><p>"I thought so."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Displacement

**Author's Note:**

> This is really, really old story that I'm just getting around to polishing and posting. It's so old that, at the time I first wrote this, Rodney's relationship with Katie Brown hadn't yet been established as previously ongoing. This will, therefore, have be considered a Rodney/Katie-less AU.
> 
> Many thanks to ex-kisa-haw and kimberlyfdr for their beta notes. It's been so long that you probably forgot you even read this, but your comments were invaluable. Also thanks to everyone who read this in its original form on Livejournal several years ago and gave your encouragement.

In all other ways, it was an un-extraordinary lunch. The protein choices were meatloaf, chicken casserole, or beans; the vegetable choices were green beans, green peas or green squash; bread was...bread; and dessert was red Jell-O. John had chicken, Rodney had meatloaf, and Teyla had beans. Ronon had all three.

Beckett was already eating--meatloaf--when they joined him, but he was, as usual, happy to slow down his lunch to have the opportunity to gossip with Ronon.

"Uh-uh," Ronon was saying when John picked up the thread of conversation, returning with a pitcher of water for the table. "You're making it up."

"Believe it," Beckett said airily. "Mexler spent all day re-potting the crop, and Dr. Parrish threatened to put the entire department on report."

"Alien microorganisms?" John guessed.

"Potting table sex," Rodney said around a mouthful of meatloaf.

"Oh." John frowned. "So why was the entire--Oh. Never mind."

"Yeah, best not to go there," Rodney advised.

"You're one to talk," Beckett said. "I heard about that little incident in the chemistry lab."

"Excuse me, but I have nothing to do with what goes on among the chemists, and that includes their personal chemistry. So long as they turn in their reports on time and don't blow up expensive and irreplaceable equipment, they can have all the orgies they want."

"Technically, it wasn't an orgy," John pointed out. "I mean, no one even took off their clothes. Well, except for their shoes--"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Rodney said, eyes screwed shut. "I've spent a great deal of time trying to permanently erase those brain cells, and you're not helping."

"I'm just saying--"

"Stop!" Rodney clamped his hands over his ears. "I've never been more glad in my entire life that physicists and engineers are so stereotypically uninterested in sex."

"I think you're just holding out on us," Ronon said.

"Holding out--Holding out what? Details of the prurient sex lives of the people with whom I happen to share lab space? First, I don't care. Second, I do my best not to know. And third, most of them know better than to tell me." Rodney shoveled in another forkful of peas. "So, apart from Simpson's completely indiscreet affair with Sergeant Lewis, followed by her slightly more discreet encounter with Lieutenant Gomez, followed by her vow of permanent celibacy; Kusanagi's completely unrequited crush on yours truly; Zelenka's equally unrequited crush on Weir; Volinsky's pathetic attempts to pretend she's straight and my own state of equally pathetic singleness--I don't know and I don't care."

"Well, glad you cleared that up," John said, not bothering to shield the sarcasm. "It's obvious now how much you don't know or care."

"It's not my fault if Zelenka is the hub of the gossip network, and feels the need to share whether I like it or not. Which is why I haven't decided if he's a monk, or if he really has slept with half the exobotany team."

Ronon made a noise somewhere between a growl and a choke, and the four others seated at the table turned to look at him.

"Something to share?" John prodded him.

"No," Ronon said gruffly.

Teyla swallowed the piece of bread she'd been eating and confided, with great delicacy, "Ronon and I recently heard a rumor that Dr. Zelenka is exceptionally..." She paused, as if searching for the right word. "...gifted."

"Of course he's gifted," McKay snapped. "I picked him for this expedition, didn't I?"

There was a moment of silence, then John said, "I don't think Teyla is talking about his brains, Rodney."

Rodney frowned. "Then what--Oh." He blinked. "Oh." Then he recovered and gave a loud snort. "Oh, please. If we're discussing, erm, size, then it's a basic optical illusion."

Now they were all staring at Rodney, who sighed in exasperation. "I mean," he said with exaggerated patience, "that Zelenka is a midget, and most of the rest of us...aren't." All he got was more staring, and he sighed again.

"Look." McKay cast around the table, and seized two of the salt shakers. He reached over and took Teyla's hand, turning it over to set one of the shakers on her palm. He then gestured impatiently to Ronon, until he, too, cautiously extended his hand. He plopped the second shaker in his palm, and waved to indicate the pair of them. "Now," he said. "Who appears to have the bigger...salt shaker."

There was a moment of silence. Then Beckett said, "I can't believe I'm having this discussion."

"I hate to say it," John said. "But they still look the same size to me."

"I dunno," Ronon said, eyeing Teyla's salt shaker. "I think Teyla's really is bigger." Teyla elbowed him, and he grinned at her.

Rodney snatched both the shakers back and replaced them on the table. "Well, the only way to know for certain is with a tape measure," he said. "And unless you're planning to launch Project Measure Zelenka's Penis, you're just going to have to--Why are you all looking at me like that?"

\-----

The project had an unexpected stroke of luck the very next day. One of the ballast tanks under the South Pier sprang a--thankfully minor--leak. McKay and Zelenka were deluged with a sudden backwash of freezing cold water while fixing the pumps, and as soon as they came out Beckett hustled them into the nearest dry room and made them strip to the skin.

Afterwards, however, Rodney staged a hasty consultation with John and Ronon, and they agreed unanimously to disallow Rodney's subsequent observations, on the grounds that no man should be held accountable for what his equipment chose to do when in prolonged contact with near-freezing water.

"I think my penis actually retreated inside my body, or tried to," Rodney admitted frankly to Sheppard, when they met later to discuss it over a pot of hot--very hot--coffee.

Sheppard nodded in sympathy, and poured him some more coffee. "So," he said. "I guess we're back to the girlfriends."

\-----

The next evening, Rodney and Sheppard met in Sheppard's room to compile the lists. Rodney was a bit embarassed about only having unearthed one person on the whole of Atlantis who had--possibly--slept with Zelenka, but he was somewhat mollified when Sheppard's list proved to be equally as short.

Teyla, on the other hand, had handed over a notepad covered in dense writing--two full screens of it. Rodney had been a little surprised that she'd agreed to participate at all, but had chosen not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"I never noticed before how small Teyla's writing is," Sheppard said, after a moment's silence.

"To hell with her penmanship," Rodney growled. "I want to know her sources." He started typing names onto his laptop, squinting at the list.

"Yeah, looks like half the exobotany department was kind of an underestimate," Sheppard said, scrolling to the next screen. "So were most of the Marines."

"What?" Rodney glanced at the screen. "Cadman?" he squeaked. "And...oh, god, Martinberg?"

"Martinberg? I don't remember..."

"Electrical engineer. Civilian. The one who snaps coffee mugs in her fingers."

"Zelenka climbed Mount Martinberg and lived to tell the tale?" Sheppard looked impressed. "Way to go, Radek."

Rodney was shaking his head. "I can't believe this. I mean, I knew he'd...but...are we the only two people in Atlantis who haven't slept with him?"

A long, pointed silence from the other side of the bed made him look up. Sheppard was holding the slightly crumpled paper napkin that was Ronon's list, studiously frowning at the bold, swirling writing that covered the paper. "Sheppard?"

Sheppard scowled, and put the list down. "Look, I was going to tell you."

"You were going to--Jesus, Sheppard!" Rodney slammed the laptop closed. "What the hell did you let me waste an entire week of my life for?"

"Rodney--"

"Yeah, okay, I understand you not wanting to say anything in the cafeteria, because, you know, 'don't tell,' whatever, but you might have resolved the question at some point in the last week."

"I didn't 'resolve the question' because I can't!" Sheppard snapped, and there was a sudden touch of color creeping up his neck.

"Did you, or did you not, have sex with Radek?" Rodney asked.

"Yeah, but--"

"Then how did you not see the man's dick!"

"It was dark!" Sheppard yelled back. "And, well, I just didn't, all right?"

"No, not all right!" Rodney folded his arms over his chest, glaring at him. "I can't believe you didn't, at some point, make at least one basic observation."

"I was little preoccupied, all right? Mostly with having my brains sucked out through my dick."

"And it didn't occur to you to reciprocate?" Rodney shot back. "You have no concept of generosity, Sheppard, that's your problem." He paused. "Even a hand job would have given us some data to--"

Sheppard buried his face in his hands. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation," he mumbled.

"Neither can I! You had the solution in your grasp--well, no, obviously you didn't, because you're apparently too self-centered in bed--"

Sheppard raised his head to glare at him. "Believe me, Rodney, if I ever have sex again, I'll bring along a set of calipers and a ruler, okay?"

"--can't believe you didn't even _look_ \--"

"Hey, after Zelenka finished blowing me, I had about two brain cells left, and I was using both of them to say 'please don't stop' and 'oh god oh god oh god.' By the time I finally got a chance to see it, it had more than done its duty, and was taking a well-deserved rest."

"Great. Just great," Rodney said in disgust. "Well, surely you noticed something. You'd think if you had the man's penis in your ass you'd at least be able to...estimate." He hesitated. "Did you, by the way?"

Sheppard shook his head. "You're really unbelievable."

"What?!"

"I just admitted to having sex with Zelenka--and, by the way, outing myself in the process, in case you missed that part--and you're whining at me because I didn't measure him properly."

"Well, frankly, that's the only part of the story that interests me," Rodney said. "I don't care if you're sleeping your way through the entire population of the city--"

"No, I'm thinking that's currently Radek's job."

"--but I am disappointed that you were so grossly unobservant." Rodney narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "How about a comparison," he suggested. "If you think back about the size of any of the other people you've--"

"I can't believe I'm still having this conversation!" Sheppard yelled at him, jumping up from the bed.

"It's the only data you've given me to work with!" Rodney snapped at him.

"Trust me, Rodney, he could have been the size of a pencil and I wouldn't have noticed."

"Well, were you sore the next day?"

"Rodney!" Sheppard yelled. Then paused. "Okay, yes! But, you know, that had more to do with getting fucked by a guy who apparently has a piston engine installed in his hips."

For the first time, Rodney was intrigued. "Really?" he asked, after a thoughtful pause.

Sheppard nodded, looking a bit wistful himself. "Yep," he said, a hint of nostalgia creeping into his voice. "And he may not look it, but he's got stamina."

"Oh. Really. How, um, much stamina?"

"I wasn't looking at a clock, but it was enough for recovery time, if you take my meaning."

"Oh." Rodney tried to swallow, but his mouth seemed to have gone unaccountably dry. "So, you, um...more than once..."

"Yeah," Sheppard said, with something like sounded suspiciously like a sigh. He looked thoughtful again. "You know, it occurs to me that you might be right, Rodney."

"Yeah? About what?"

"Well, about empirical observation. I mean, I wouldn't be breaking the rules or anything if I just asked him for an encore." Then he sighed, and slumped back down on the bed. "Well, maybe not."

"You don't think he'd want to?"

Sheppard shrugged. "It was kind of one of those things."

"One of those...?"

"You know. One of those...things. One of those, 'We didn't die, we haven't slept, we're both pissed off at Rodney, oh, look, Radek's lips accidentally got wrapped around my dick' things." He paused again. "Although, you know, if it becomes necessary I could probably make the sacrifice. If I really had to."

"Yeah."

Sheppard sighed again. "Yeah."

\-----

"I think we should try to re-create the original experiment."

John stared at Rodney. "What time is it?" he finally asked.

"How should I know?" Rodney pushed past him into his room and shut the door. He had a computer tablet in his hand, and as soon as he was inside he whirled and began punching at the screen. "Now, some of the parameters can't be duplicated, obviously, but I think we can--"

"Rodney!" John said, loudly. "What experiment?"

McKay looked up, startled. "Zelenka," he said, as if it should have been obvious.

John scrubbed his hands over his face, and went to his nightstand to pick up his watch. "It's three in the morning, Rodney."

"Yes, well, no time like the present," Rodney said briskly. "Now, as I said, it won't be an exact repeat--"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Rodney blinked at him. "Sex, of course," he said, impatience evident in every syllable. "I've decided that if we duplicate the circumstances of your original encounter with Zelenka, only with me as a substitute, then we'll have a baseline to use for comparison. I've taken some measurements of myself--length, circumference, water displacement--with estimated margins of error for level of arousal, room temperature, air currents, and size of foreskin--fortunately I noted from my one brief observation that Radek isn't circumcised, either--so," Rodney continued, "if we re-create the situation, you'll be able to make a judgement based on a carefully measured comparison." He beamed.

"Okay," John said after a moment, not entirely sure that even he believed what he was about to say. "You want to have sex with me, so I can compare the size of your dick with Radek's and...?"

"Form a baseline for comparison, yes!" Rodney seemed delighted that John had finally gotten with the program. "Now." He started tapping the screen of the notepad again. "First, I need to know a few things about the original event."

"Are you insane?"

Rodney glared. "I honestly don't know what you're complaining about," he said, sounding genuinely miffed. "I'm the one who's going to have to do all the work, here. Mind-altering blowjob, piston-like sex-making, ungodly stamina." He waved a hand at John. "All you have to do is lounge there and have multiple orgasms."

John sat up. "Wait, I thought the point was to measure the dick-to-ass ratio," he said. "You didn't say anything about a blowjob."

"Have you been listening to me at all? We have to duplicate the original conditions for the data to mean anything, therefore you need to be post-orgasm before penetration. So, oral sex first, then intercourse."

Despite himself, John perked up a bit. "Well, okay," he conceded. "You didn't say anything about oral sex. Or multiple orgasms. That puts a different spin on things."

"All right." Rodney consulted his notepad. "Now. Was it planned, or spontaneous?"

"Um..." John thought back. "Well, we were sitting in the mess hall, complaining about...you, and then Radek said 'If we go back to your room I can give you a fantastic blowjob.'"

Rodney waited. "So, sort of spontaneous."

"I wasn't sure if he was kidding," John admitted. "But I said yes, because, you know--"

"--possible blowjob," they said together.

"Right," Rodney continued. "So, I think this can count as more or less equally spontaneous. Now, the recently-escaped-death isn't possible right now, except of course for the normal everyday escape from death we get around here. Then there's sleep deprivation--"

"Not a problem," John yawned.

"--annoyance with me--"

"Again, not a problem," John assured him.

"So I think we're more or less on track with the environmental conditions," Rodney concluded. "Okay." He tossed the notepad aside and stood up. "Now, where did it happen?"

"Uh, bed," John said.

"The blowjob, too?"

"Yeah."

"So." Rodney paced back to the door, brow furrowed. "You came in, and...?" He looked at John expectantly. John waited.

"What? You want to start now?"

"I need to know the basic pattern of events," Rodney explained patiently. "Unless you want to have to shout out stage directions mid-coitus--"

"Okay, okay." John stood up, suddenly feeling a bit nervous. "We, um, came in, and then Zelenka kind of pushed me over to the bed and took my pants off, and...well, after that things got a bit fuzzy."

"And after you came?"

"He sort of, you know, rolled me over and went at it."

"No prep?"

"Um...maybe?" John guessed.

"That's an important factor," Rodney said, sounding annoyed. "The degree of physical relaxation is going to have significant impact on your perception of size. Was there any lubricant handy?"

John thought back. He didn't remember Radek asking about lube, or, to be honest, asking much of anything. "I'm not sure," he finally said.

"Was the condom lubricated? I brought both kinds."

"This is really not helping to put me in the right frame of mind," John said.

"Fine, fine. We'll go with the lubricated one, since it seems that whatever preparation Zelenka bothered with was clearly minimal."

"I wasn't complaining," John couldn't help pointing out.

"Well, if anything else pops to mind, let me know," Rodney shut down the tablet and stood up. "Okay. I think we're ready to start." He gestured. "Go stand by the door, and I'll be Zelenka."

"Just so you know, Rodney, this is officially going to be the weirdest sex I've ever had."

"Oh, please," Rodney scoffed. He took John's shoulders, and started pushing him over to the bed. He applied pressure until John sat down, then stopped, his face growing worried. "Was there any kissing?" he asked.

"Yeah, on the way over."

"Well why didn't you say so?" Rodney pulled him up and marched him back to the door. "Honestly, Sheppard, if you're not going to be honest about the conditions..." He got them positioned again. "Tongue, or not?" he asked briskly.

John just stared, helpless.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine, we'll wing it," he muttered. "Just don't blame me if the data turns out hopelessly skewed."

\-----

"Okay. So. Initial observations?"

"Gngh," John said. His face was buried in the mattress, arms flopped over his head so his hands dangled down the opposite side. Rodney's knee nudged his hip, then the back of his hand landed, not gently, on John's backside.

"Hello, Colonel! I need data, here."

"Give me a second, okay?" John mumbled into the blanket.

"Look, the more time that passes, the less accurate your observations. So."

With a heave, John managed to flop over onto his back, sweatpants still around his ankles, his shirt rucked up to his armpits, chest and belly flushed and sweaty. His dick was still twitching a bit, and he would have liked to have just curled up and gone to sleep. "You know," he said, looking up at Rodney, "if we're duplicating the conditions, I got cuddling afterwards."

Rodney was standing above him, completely naked but holding his notepad in one hand, pen ready in the other. It really, really shouldn't have been sexy.

"Data first, cuddling later," he said, pen poised above the screen.

So, John thought about it. "Honestly," he said at last, "I couldn't tell."

"Couldn't tell what?"

"Well, you felt about the same."

"Oh, great. That's helpful."

"It is?"

"No." Rodney sat down next to him on the bed, picking up his discarded shirt to wipe his sweaty face. "Well, yes, I suppose it's something," he admitted. "Apparently Radek isn't significantly larger or smaller than I am. Assuming, that is, that the conditions were sufficiently similar and you weren't more or less relaxed or nervous."

But John was looking up at him with a new insight. "Just how much time have you spent thinking about this?" he asked. "How many Rodney-hours went into this whole experiment?"

"Well, there was the time spent formulating the methodology," Rodney said. "And the measurements took a while--you won't believe what I had to do to find a proper-sized beaker for the water displacement test--and of course I had to set out the conditions and determine the test questions--"

"And you think Dr. Weir would see this as a productive use of our time?"

"Excuse me, but I distinctly remember Elizabeth being very insistent on her senior staff finding hobbies for their down-time."

"And spending a week trying to find out the size of Radek Zelenka's penis counts as a hobby."

Rodney waved a hand. "It's displacement," he said dismissively. "Look, I don't think any of us honestly gives a crap about the size of Radek's equipment. I don't. At least, not so much that it wouldn't be a lot simpler to just walk up and ask him. We're displacing our anxiety about being trapped in the middle of another galaxy with life-sucking aliens bent on killing us all."

"So instead of worrying about certain death, we're obsessing over the size of another man's penis." John considered. "Seems healthy enough to me."

"I thought so."

\-----

Rodney showed up at Sheppard's door the next night, tablet in hand. Sheppard let him in, grabbed the computer and threw it on the couch, then pushed him against the wall and shoved his shirt up to his neck.

"You realize," Rodney panted, when Sheppard finally pulled his mouth away and started nipping his way down Rodney's throat, "that this is significantly altering the parameters." The last syllable was nearly a squeak, as Sheppard dragged his mouth down Rodney's chest and began sucking on a patch of skin just below his left nipple.

"Well," Sheppard said into his skin, pausing to lick up around the nipple, then down to Rodney's navel. "How about tonight you get the blowjob and fuck, and that way if you ever have sex with Zelenka, you'll be able to compare, too."

There was some sort of flaw in that logic, but Rodney's brain couldn't quite seem to wrap around it, at least not after Sheppard fell down to his knees in front of him and started unzipping his pants.

"Yeah, okay," he managed to say. Sheppard licked around the head of his cock, and somewhere another neuron fired. "But we'll have to measure you, too. Later," he added.

\-----

By the fifth night, it was pretty clear to John that they weren't even pretending to stick to the parameters of the experiment anymore. Well, unless the experiment was "if John Sheppard is sucking Rodney McKay's dick, how many fingers can John put in Rodney's ass before Rodney loses the power of coherent speech?"

\-----

"You know, we should really maybe interview some of those people on the list."

"What list?"

"The Zelenka list."

"Oh, yeah. That list. Maybe tomorrow."

"Yeah, tomorrow."

\-----

Radek Zelenka was curled up in his own bed, tucked under the covers, sleeping the sleep of the just. It had been a long day, and he was tired, but when the door chimed a little after midnight he woke at once, and got up to let Ronon in.

"You are late," Radek said, stepping aside to let Ronon pass.

"Yeah, felt like doing some running." Ronon walked to the bed, pulling his shirt over his head as he went, kicking off his boots and then his pants before falling down on the mattress. When Radek joined him, he rolled over to pull him on top of him, sliding his hands down Radek's back, his fingers stroking and petting while they kissed, Radek's hands tangling lazily in the thick softness of Ronon's hair.

"Did you run with Colonel Sheppard?" he asked.

"Nope. Saw McKay though, going into Sheppard's room." Ronon grinned, rubbing his palm in a circle over Radek's hip. "Looks like they're still working on their project, or whatever they're calling it."

"Are you sure? They haven't tried to sneak up on me and scan my penis for nearly a week." Radek gave what he was sure was an undignified squeak as Ronon's other hand snaked around and under to curl around the body part in question, stroking and squeezing. "What on earth made you let them suggest such a thing?"

"Hey, Teyla started it. Besides, it was fun," Ronon said, shrugging. "Kept them busy, didn't it? And now Teyla's got them convinced that you're the Qusiketch of Atlantis."

"Well there is that," Radek conceded, even though he had no idea who Qusiketch was, and bent to kiss Ronon again. "Now," he said, speaking against the firm curves of Ronon's mouth, darting his tongue out to touch, and to taste, between words. "Shall we make our own measurements? For purely scientific purposes, of course."

"Sounds good." Ronon's hand moved in, and Radek felt the easy, slow glide of a finger against him, pressing in until he gasped and shook and clamped his thighs hard around Ronon's body.

"That's one," Ronon rumbled.

THE END


End file.
